RUNNING HEAD: Artificial Intelligence to Improve US Military Tactics

Development of Artificial Intelligence to Improve US Military Tactics

Faris Syed & Joshua De Vera

Progress Report VII

3/3/2020

Objectives:

Over the past few weeks we’ve edited the program to include an artificial intelligence program

based on newly tested coefficients which are more accurate. Likewise, we also updated the

interface to allow the user to see the maneuver of the artificial intelligence program, the number

of resources it committed, and the result of the simulated conflict alongside the reasoning.
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Materials and Methods

Within a military conflict, the assets utilized in a single battle are divided up differently

depending on the battle and the opposition. Since this is a factor in the probability of which side

will win, we needed to further optimize the coefficients and dependence on different assets.

Furthermore, other resources and implementations were added to allow for a more realistic

implementation of the probability of who will win a battle.

Figure 1. ​The following is an initial implementation of how our computer-generated assets will

reply to different results generated by the human player. As shown in the figure, a resultant array

will be used to determine the differences between human and computer assets to determine the

results.
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Figure 2.​ The figure above shows the update to the different outputs that will be generated based

on different decisions generated by the players. These are applicable to both the human and

computer players as they will be used to assess the outcome between the two sides.

Figure 3. ​The figure above shows the deletions for the unnecessary instantiations of the assets

for the second country. This was condensed into the code that can be seen below the red in green

where the different commitments were applied through the computer resources array.
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Figure 4. ​The following is the current status of our artificial intelligence program. The code on

the left predicts how what moves the user will make and as a result picks a maneuver that will

best counter this action. Based on the maneuver picked, the code on the right adjusts the number

of assets needed in order to successfully ensure a positive win rate for the computer.
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Data Analysis and Results

With the implementation of these changes into our program, we will be able to determine

more realistic asset coefficients when determining probabilities of a desired instance of battle.

With the matrix coefficient solver being used to determine our coefficients, we will be able to

determine a relative average for a finite number of battles used as preliminary data.

Figure 5.​ The following code shows a matrix solver that was written to take a matrix from a

workbook (Excel spreadsheet) to solve for coefficients that will be used to determine

probabilities between the two players in the simulation. In the spreadsheet, different coefficients,

relative to the assets that we have implemented to determine the probability of the winning side,

will be able to be solved.

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Figure 6. ​The following is the updated user interface which tells the user the movements of the

artificial intelligence program, the chances of the user winning, and the start of a line of

reasoning as to why the user lost despite having more resources.

Figure 7. ​The following is an example of the limitations we added to the user input to increase

the realism of the simulator. In this scenario, the utilization of nuclear assets automatically

results in a loss because the idea of mutually assured destruction between nation results in the

destruction of all.
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Future Plans

In the future, we plan on improving the artificial intelligence program and its win rate.

Likewise, we’d also like to clean up the interface more and restrict inputs at each level of the

program to ensure we encounter fewer errors when an incorrect string is inputted. In addition to

this, we would like to continue the optimization of the different functions that we are using to

determine the probabilities of winning for different outcomes we will use. With this, we will

likely be able to have many more trials and data points to build a larger success rate for our

program.
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References

Pandas. (2018). Categorical data. Retrieved February 25, 2020, from

https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/user_guide/categorical.html​.

W3Schools. (2020). Python Classes and Objects. Retrieved February 27, 2020, from

https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_classes.asp

Battle, A. (2016). Tactics Tutorial. Retrieved February 27, 2020, from

http://www.theartofbattle.com/tactics-tutorial/